Some of the best opportunities to strengthen a solar project come from bringing together the people who plan, design and build it to share what they are seeing and learning. That was the idea behind a recent SunPeak team visit to Badger Meter’s Milwaukee headquarters, where project developers, engineers and project coordinators joined the field team constructing a new 670 kWdc ground-mount solar array. Together, the teams recognized practices that were working especially well, exchanged perspectives across different phases of the project, and identified lessons they can carry forward to make future projects even stronger.
It’s an exercise SunPeak teams participate in periodically for a simple reason: when the people involved throughout a project have opportunities to learn directly from one another, everyone gains a better understanding of the full process. That shared perspective helps reinforce successful practices, improve coordination and identify ways to make projects safer, more efficient and easier for our customers from start to finish.
One Team, Start to Finish
SunPeak’s vertically integrated approach means the people who develop, engineer, manage, build and maintain our solar projects work as one connected team. That creates opportunities for knowledge and experience to move freely across every phase of a project rather than being lost between handoffs.
Site visits are one way we put that advantage into practice.
For office team members, being on site provides valuable context for how thoughtful planning, engineering and coordination come together during construction. It also gives the field team an opportunity to share its perspective and see how decisions made earlier in the process support efficient, high-quality work in the field.
At Badger Meter, conversations covered topics ranging from material selection and construction methods to weather considerations and how new communication tools can be used across teams. Just as importantly, the visit gave team members an opportunity to recognize approaches that were working particularly well and understand why. Those shared observations help reinforce successful practices while generating ideas that can be applied to future work.
Building on a Longstanding Partnership
Badger Meter was a fitting location for the visit. The Milwaukee-based company develops technologies that help utilities, municipalities and businesses measure and manage water, making resource conservation an important part of both its business and its broader approach to sustainability.
SunPeak first partnered with Badger Meter in 2017 to install a 726 kWdc rooftop solar array at its headquarters. The new 670 kWdc ground-mount array nearly doubles Badger Meter’s onsite renewable energy capacity, marking another step in the company’s continued investment in sustainable operations and building on a relationship with SunPeak that spans nearly a decade.
Turning Shared Experience Into Stronger Projects
The Badger Meter visit wasn’t simply an opportunity to tour a construction site. It reflects a broader commitment at SunPeak to creating time for teams to step outside their individual roles, share expertise, and look at projects from one another’s perspective.
Because the same organization is responsible for a project from early development through construction and ongoing operations and maintenance, those conversations have an impact well beyond a single job site. What an engineer learns from an installer can influence a future design. What a project developer sees in the field can inform early planning with the next customer. And practices that prove especially successful can be recognized, documented, shared and repeated across the organization.
For our customers, that translates into a solar partner that is continually learning from its own experience and applying that knowledge across every stage of the process. It’s one more way SunPeak works to deliver safe, efficient, high-quality solar projects—and a strong customer experience from start to finish.